The wastewater treatment plant at Umicore Olen plays a key role in managing water on our site. In recent years, we have made significant investments to upgrade and modernize the installation, including the addition of a sedimentation tank. Thanks to these improvements, the plant removes metals even more efficiently, allowing us to stay well below the legal limits for metals in water.
Advanced techniques
Our water treatment and monitoring follow the Best Available Techniques (BAT). The installation treats all the water used on our site and removes contaminants through physico‑chemical purification. Every day, almost 7,000 m³ of water is cleaned before it is safely discharged.
Monitoring and protection
We continuously measure the quality of the treated water to ensure it is safe for local waterways. The Kleine Nete is monitored periodically to closely follow up on this process.
Innovation for continuous improvement
Innovation is essential to our environmental performance. At our innovation center in Olen, we are constantly looking for ways to make the installation work even better. For example, we run small‑scale laboratory simulations of the treatment process. This allows us to test potential changes in advance and fine‑tune them. Most recently, we optimized the flocculant to improve settling and increase efficiency.